Justice vs. strict constructionism

My response to this:
The constitution is not an end, it is a means. As a means, it has several ends. One of its stated ends is to ‘establish justice’. Rights are not granted by the constitution, but some are recognized by it explicitly.
If the constitution fails to bring justice, or to recognize a right, the courts still have a responsibility to be just, because justice is the goal, not legalism.

Do not Question!!!

Measured Against Reality has a post on meaningless questions, questions that are unanswerable because they are poorly formed. Like 'What is outside of the universe?'.

He uses a lot of examples from the debate over evolution and the big bang. When people disagree on a complex subject, they often challenge the other side with questions. They find something that the theory doesn't seem to explain. Sometimes it's a good challenge, sometimes it has an answer, and sometimes it's gibberish.

The problem is that such questions don't have a place in rational discourse, at all.

When you make an argument, you start with premises, follow a logical pattern, and reach a conclusion. If your premises are true and your logic valid, then your conclusion must be true.
For someone to attack your claim, they should make an argument that one or more of your premises are false, or that your logic is invalid. Their argument should also have premises and logic, and be subject to the same style of attack.

Challenge questions sidestep all that. They attack a conclusion without attacking the premises or logic that lead up to it. They make an argument, but make it difficult to criticize by obscuring its implied premises, which may be gibberish. It is this easy and hard to counter attack that makes them popular rhetoric, but bad argument.

Questions for clarification or knowledge are fine. I am only against questions used to attack structured arguments.

We should not ask 'Well then who did Cain marry?'. It provides no premises, and disproves nothing. We should make assertions about who would have been available for Cain, and those assertions can be rationally discussed.

Conversely, we should not answer challenge questions, whether they are meaningful or not. We should put it upon the challenger to make a good argument against our premises or logic. We have no obligation to be sniped at, and if our arguments are good, then theirs will fall flat.

A Thwarted Creation Myth

"Rolos are one of the seven perfect candies God created at the beginning of the world."

"That's stupid, I remember when Rolos came out."

Voynich Manuscript

Now you can download Hi-res scans of the Voynich Manuscript.

Happy Day!

Do not Fear the Gods

In my research on Epicurus, I found this

The Epicurean Blog: This same double-standard operates when Dawkins links creed and behavior. If religion in practice fueled the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the sectarian wars of the 15th and 16th centuries would not atheism in practice be responsible for the 20th Century European charnel houses created by Hitler and Stalin? Orr criticizes the distinctions that Dawkins cites to avoid that conclusion, differences that Dawkins will not allow when considering religion.

I responded:
Dawkins does not link Hitler's and Stalin's atrocities to atheism because his premise is that atheism is not a false belief. We should not believe Christianity because it is false, and we should not be respectfully deferential to it because it is dangerous.

If we assume that a person with no false beliefs would commit no such atrocities, and that atheism is true, then we must attribute atrocious actions of atheists to other, false beliefs they hold. I don't know what distinctions Orr criticized, but truth is the one that matters.

That an idea is dangerous is not an argument that it is false, but that a idea is dangerous and false is an argument that it should be confronted.

He didn't write a book about the tooth fairy because belief in the tooth fairy hasn't shown itself to be very dangerous.

-A new fan of Epicurus

This is How Network Neutrality Should Be Framed

The Register: "'That's absolutely what you are asking for!' he shouted to counter-shots of 'no!' and 'there is no market place!', referring to the fact a handful of phone and cable companies control the lion share of broadband internet access and service in the US."

At every step, present the telecom carriers with the dictate: As long as you are getting access to the public space to run your lines, we as citizens have a right to those lines under reasonable terms.

This pushes the debate into an area that they dare not risk, their special government privileges. I would be happy to allow packet shaping if it meant I could run my own fiber down the street, but that's not going to happen.

They are not part of a market, and cannot possibly be in a true market, as long as we are giving them special permission to exist. Neither the telephone or cable companies would survive long if we didn't give them their monopolies on the infrastructure. Never let them forget that they owe us.

If you can, hint at it in every paragraph. They will fold.

The Power of Negative Thinking

This Article from Slate introduces a book called Never Saw It Coming as a counterpoint to The Secret. It appears to be a book about the need for contingency planning, and what happens when you don't look at and prepare for possible disasters.
This interests me in particular because it touches on the wider themes of how to establish policy, prevent intelligence failures, and how to think in general.

I need a wishlist.